State parks, sites pay Irene's toll

Chris Carola Associated Press

Published 12:10 am, Monday, September 19, 2011

ALBANY -- Ann Peconie was picking through mud-covered debris left by flood waters from the rain-swollen Mohawk River when she spotted the Victorian vase, wedged between a log and a display case inside the 18th-century manor-turned-museum she runs.

"It was perfect," she said of the artifact found inside the Walter Elwood Museum at Amsterdam's Guy Park Manor, a pre-Revolutionary War structure that sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Irene flooding that also severely damaged many of the properties in the New York state's cash-strapped system of parks and historic sites.

"The priority was to clean up and get things open as quickly as possible," he said.

The storm closed dozens of state-run properties, from beaches on Long Island to hiking trails in the Adirondacks and Catskills. Other parks suffered damage when the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee caused flooding around Binghamton and other eastern areas on Sept. 8.

Keefe said most of the closed parks have since reopened, but some are in rough shape. Among the properties that remain closed is Guy Park Manor, a state-owned historic site on the Mohawk River's north bank in Amsterdam. Also still closed was the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site in Fort Hunter.